Bd		White	Score		Score		Black
1	GM	Michael Adams	5	½‑½	4½	GM	Daniel H Fernandez	play
2	IM	Yichen Han	4½	½‑½	4½	GM	Nikita Vitiugov	play
3	GM	Gawain Maroroa Jones	4½	½‑½	4½	IM	Maciej Czopor	play
4	GM	Ameet K Ghasi	4½	½‑½	4½	FM	Supratit Banerjee	play
5	GM	Matthew J Wadsworth	4½	0-1	4½	GM	Shreyas Royal	play
6	GM	Stephen J Gordon	4	½‑½	4½	IM	Siva Mahadevan
7	IM	David J Eggleston	4	0-1	4	GM	Stuart C Conquest	play
8	GM	Glenn C Flear	4	½‑½	4	IM	Svyatoslav Bazakutsa	play
9	WGM	Elmira Mirzoeva	4	½‑½	4	IM	Jonah B Willow
10	FM	Lorenzo Fava	4	0-1	4	IM	Peter T Roberson
11	IM	Marcus R Harvey	4	1-0	4	GM	Peter K Wells
12	IM	Richard G Pert	4	0-1	4	FM	Koby Kalavannan
13	FM	William Claridge‑Hansen	4	0-1	4	WGM	Lan Yao

Click on “play” in rightmost column to play through game in question on screen.

The first game to finish on LiChess was that between IM Yang-Fan Zhou and Jacob Connor Boswell shown as draw after White’s 9th move. Somebody obviously pressed the wrong button, as the game got up and running again a few moments afterwards. Openings on the top 7 boards were familiar staid affairs not promising early fireworks.

On board 8, Flear v Bazakutska saw White launch an early assault on Black’s castled king, being tempted to do so by Black who in effect grabbed a pawn effectively inviting White to prove his attack wouldn’t fizzle out and leave White’s king in a more difficult position that Black’s. By move 22, both players were clearly trying to decide whether to opt for perpetual check of risk avoiding it. They both went for the draw, presumably as otherwise they were both losing!!

Board 16 say a more sedate early assault on Black’s castled king with White forgoing castling.

Meanwhile, a draw on board 1 seemed likely, and eventually cane to pass. Things on board 2 seemed only slightly more likely to result in a win. On board 3, however, Maciej Czopor sacked the exchange to win 2 pawns, but things fizzled out to a draw. Maciej Czopor is Polish. Maciej is pronounced with the stress on the first syllable essentially as "Machay" would be pronounced in English (the "chay" being as the "chai" in "chain"). Czopor is pronounced with the stress on the first syllable essentially as "Chopor" would be in English but with pronounced "r". ci is in fact the palatised form of cz, but unless you are a linguist, or are conversant with languages such as Russian or Gaelic, then that will mean nothing to you.

Major Open

Round-7 top 16 pairings were as follows:

Bd		White	Score		Score	Black
1	FM	Tim P Wall	5½	1-0	5½	Livio Cancedda-Dupuis	play
2		Arjun Kolani	5½	1-0	5	Adam Sefton	play
3		Adam A Taylor	5	½‑½	5	Luis Ortiz Sanchez
4		Toby Quaite	5	1-0	4½	Remy Rushbrooke	play
5		Adam Sieczkowski	4½	0-1	4½	Jack Pilley
6		Om Reddy Jayar	4½	½-½	4½	Selikem PJ Amoako
7		Colin J Davis	4	0-1	4	Sooraj Menothuparambil Raju
8	FM	Jonathan P Nelson	4	1-0	4	Finn Schell	play
9		Andrew Savage	4	0-1	4	Liam D Varnam
10		Koichi B Nicholas	4	1-0	4	Josh Sharma
11		John N Sugden	4	½-½	4	Ali Reza Jaunooby
12		Zack Norris	4	1-0	4	Leonardo Gupta
13		James Thomas	4	1-0	4	Tetsuaki Sanada
14		John M Potter	4	1-0	4	Advait Keerthi Kumar
15		Jainill Vadalia	4	½-½	4	Alexandre KM Lee
16		Bohdan Terler	4	½-½	4	Xavier Cowan

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The first game to finish was a14-move win from Sheffield’s Jonathan Nelson. No, nothing clever; his opponent gave away a piece in the opening with a queen check at a4 winning an undefended knight on g4. Whoops!

There was another “whoops” moment when Toby Quaite’s opponent made a simple oversight, dropping a piece.

Tim Wall had been looking like winning for a long time. and eventually turned in the win.

On board 10, White seemed to be struggling a bit to find the way to win, and the game was the last to finish.

Over 50

Round-5 top 11 pairings were as follows:

Bd		White	Score		Score		Black
1	CM	David C Okike	3½	0-1	3½	GM	Keith C Arkell	play
2	FM	John Merriman	3½	1-0	3½	FM	Richard J McMichael	play
3	FM	Michael Dougherty	3½	1-0	3½	NM	Philip J Crocker	play
4	CM	Stephen C Ledger	3	½‑½	3	FM	Chris R Duncan
5	IM	Chris W Baker	3	1-0	3		Alan M Brown
6		Peter Jaszkiwskyj	3	1-0	3		Andrew R Brett
7		Neil R Farrell	2½	1-0	2½		Nigel J Moyse
8		Nigel RE Alldritt	2½	0-1	2½		George DA Neave
9		Bruce L Baer	2½	1-0	2½		Jeff R Smith
10		Steve Kee	2½	0-1	2½		Eric D Gardiner
11		Michael R Handley	2½	1-0	2½		Tim Wheeler

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Of the wins on the top three boards, Arkle’s was the last to materialise, at move 64. On board 2, McMichael played a Dutch Stonewall (quite popular it seems) in which Black usually aims to attack White by advancing his king’s side pawns. In this game Black paid the potential price of leaving his king itself too exposed. On board 3, White arguably shouldn’t have allowed his a-pawn to fall the way he did (or the writer is missing something – more likely!).

Over 65

Round-5 top 8 pairings were as follows:

Bd		White	Score		Score		Black
1		M Paul Townsend	3½	½‑½	3½	FM	Terry PD Chapman	play
2	FM	Andrew P Lewis	3½	1-0	3½	IM	Craig W Pritchett	play
3	FM	Peter Varley	3½	0-1	3½	IM	Nigel E Povah	play
4		Dave J Bray	3½	½‑½	3		Michael J Hardman
5		Jeff R Dawson	3	0-1	3		Phil J Brooks
6		Brian WR Hewson	3	½‑½	3		Paul A Hutchinson
7		Simon Johnson	3	0-1	3		Mark E Page
8		John T Fletcher	3	0-1	2½		Russell G Granat

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As a fellow Yorkshireman, the writer hopes for a White win on board 1, but that, sadly, was not to be, the game being an uneventful 24-move draw. On board 2, Scotsman Craig Pritchett seemed incredibly to miss a threatened mate, but maybe he’d worked out his position was irretrievably lost and was, in effect, resigning. On board 3, White played Bird’s Opening. Black responded energetically, sacrificing a pawn to accelerate his development. White then recaptured a bishop on d2 with his king rather than a knight, so stranding his king in the middle. Black opted for 2 rooks versus a queen, which helped to make the game entertaining. The strength of doubled rooks on the seventh rank gave Black a win in 48 entertaining moves.